Is it right to fear God? What is the difference between a destructive fear and a “holy trepidation”? An Advent homily by Fr Stephen Wang: Look around you at the chapel walls. Look at the […]
Tag: Pope Francis
Catholics and Our Common Home: Caring for the Planet We Share
At last we are in fashion! Back in 1995 I wrote a CTS pamphlet entitled, Must Catholics be Green? It had seemed obvious to me for a long time that any sane person would want […]
How to lead people into a deeper understanding of God’s plan for the family: Catholic catechesis and RCIA
I have loved watching and following the footage of Pope Francis in the US recently, and have been overjoyed to hear of conversions and graces coming from his visit. Such a blessed time for a […]
Francis’s bold message to abortion survivors: come and be freed
Pope Francis yesterday sent media and commentators into a tailspin after calling for all priests to be granted the faculty to absolve the sin of abortion during the Year of Mercy (see Crux). The bold gesture, […]
Francis declares 1 September ‘World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation’
Pope Francis has agreed with a request from the Orthodox for Catholics to join them in praying for creation on 1 September. The suggestion was made by Metropolitan John of Pergamon, who was part of […]
Living simply: the contemporary relevance of the virtue of temperance
Laudato Si’ challenges us to live a simpler lifestyle. In this, Pope Francis follows the teaching of his two predecessors. St John Paul II wrote: Simplicity, moderation and discipline, as well as a spirit of […]
Laudato Si’: a summary of Pope Francis’s sweeping eco-encyclical
Pope Francis’s encyclical Praised Be You: On the Care of Our Common Home is available in full here. A brief, ’10 things you need to know’ video by Fr James Martin is here. Humanum has produced a […]
Laudato Si’ – the new Encyclical from Pope Francis: a landmark in modern church teaching that will shape a new future
When it appears tomorrow, Laudato Si’ — “Praised Be You” — will captivate and divide the world by issuing the most robust challenge to the contemporary myth of progress in recent times. Any other document […]
The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope
I’ve written a review of Austen Ivereigh’s new biography of Pope Francis at the Quadrapheme website. You can read the full review here; and see the first few paragraphs copied below. There is, in Buenos Aires, […]
Extraordinary Synod final report: English translation of the relatio synodi
What follows is the official English translation of the Relatio Synodi, the concluding report of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, which was voted on by 183 synod fathers at the conclusion of the meeting in […]
Pope Francis press conference on papal plane from Seoul: full transcript
On his flight back from Korea yesterday Pope Francis held another lengthy press conference, generating a series of stories today: He approved the idea of military intervention in Iraq to prevent the genocide now taking place at […]
Can you have evangelists without first having disciples?
I came across this video earlier this week. Obviously, it comes from a Protestant context (so their concept of worship is not ours), but essentially, it is saying exactly the same thing that we Catholics […]
Pope Francis anniversary interview: highlights
Francis’s 5 March interview with Corriere della Sera — published simultaneously by La Nación in Argentina — contains fewer surprises than we have been used to in his previous ones, and has therefore attracted less attention than […]
The key to understanding Pope Francis
A talk by Fr Stephen Wang, which looks at the first sections of the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, and gives a key to understanding the vision of Pope Francis and his first year in office.
In biggest reform yet, Pope Francis names Cardinal Pell to new ‘Economy Secretariat’
Pope Francis has announced the biggest shake-up in Vatican administration for years by creating a new Secretariat for the Economy which will have oversight of all economic and administrative activities within the Holy See and the […]
Pope Francis’s motorbike
Writer Audrey Gillan has written a topical short drama, which was speedily produced by BBC Radio 4, about the auction of Pope Francis’s Harley Davidson motorcycle earlier this week. It’s a charming story about family […]
The common philosophy of Mark Zuckerberg and Pope Francis
I gave a talk about Pope Francis on Monday evening, and in I spent a lot of time commenting on the magnificent paragraph 49 of Evangelii Gaudium: Let us go forth, then, let us go forth […]
White Elephant: the Christian presence in the violent slums of Argentina in the 1970s
Much has been made of Pope Francis’ work in the Argentinian slums before being elected Pontiff. An interesting point of reference is the 2012 feature film “White Elephant”, a subtitled movie set in the villa […]
Time Magazine names Pope Francis its ‘Person of the Year’
Reuters has the story, which begins: Time magazine named Pope Francis its Person of the Year on Wednesday, crediting him with shifting the message of the Catholic Church while capturing the imagination of millions of […]
The Joy of the Gospel: a summary and guide to Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation
The first teaching document mainly authored by Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, is a bold and thrilling bid to send the Catholic Church worldwide on mission. Energetic, direct, lyrical, its language and style model the evangelisation to […]
Why western liberal adulation risks distorting the truth about Pope Francis
‘Pope idol’ is the headline above the Sunday Times‘ informative profile of the ‘Francis effect’ — the term the media are using to sum up the invigorating, renewing effect of his papacy. The headline captures his […]
